In the New Testament, being adopted is a powerful image for our being received into God’s family. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul draws the sharp contrast between a non-believer and a believer in Christ. He says the difference is like that between a slave and a son. A slave tries to please his master out of fear, to avoid punishment. But a son tries to please his father out of love.

He writes in 8:15: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”

Parenthetically, let me say a word about Paul’s use of the word “sons.” In using the male word, “sons,” Paul is not in any way implying a lower status for women. That’s clear from the very next verse, where he shifts and uses the word for “children,” both male and female. He uses the word “sons” because in that culture sons had greater inheritance rights than daughters. He wanted his readers to understand that, as we come into God’s family, all of us, male and female, inherit fully from our heavenly Father. When we are adopted into God’s family, men and women, boys and girls are given equal standing as full inheritors of the riches of God’s grace, as children of God.

A slave never knows where he stands, but a child is secure in his Father’s love. The Holy Spirit given to us causes us to know our heavenly Father and also to yearn for more intimacy with him. And to show this, Paul uses the word “Abba,” a more intimate term than “Father,” more like “Daddy” or “Papa.” It’s the word Jesus used in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was in anguish over going to the Cross. He prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

This summer, our son and his wife adopted a child from China, a seven-year-old girl they now call Lydia. They have embraced her and received her as their own, which she truly is. After spending all of her life in an orphanage, she is now secure as a beloved member of a family.

The coming of this precious child into our family brings home to me what an extraordinary thing God has done for us. He has adopted us as full members of his family and he now sees us the same way he sees his Son Jesus. That’s the fruit of the great substitution which Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Just as God put our sin and guilt upon Jesus as he died in our place, he also put Jesus’ righteousness upon us. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.)

And so our Father treats us as his beloved child. We have the same standing with the Father as Jesus does. Heaven is my home. His Spirit is within me. I am His child. And nothing can separate me from the love of God.